Print Club: The Lifted Brow #30 Is Irreverent, Weird, and Unlike Any Other Magazine in Australia

The thirtieth issue of experimental Australian art and literature journal The Lifted Brow is its most visually striking yet. Weird and wonderful comics, artwork and graphic design complement immersive essays about the relationship between the Full House Netflix reboot and Donald Trump, archived MSN messenger conversations, and the gradual destruction of Tasmania’s old growth forests.

Launched earlier this month, this is the last edition of the iconic quarterly publication for departing duo Ellena Savage and Gillian Terzis, who are stepping aside to make room for a new editorial team. They spoke to The Creators Project about the bittersweet experience of saying goodbye to the category-defying magazine, which was founded in 2007 by writer Ronnie Scott.

“Over the past six editions we had a really amazing time sifting through ideas, drafts, and dreams to make what we did,” Savage tells us. “Which was, I think, true to both The Lifted Brow’s legacy and our own personal obsessions.”

While Brow contributors are paid, its editorial staff work on a voluntary basis. And this ethos informs the energy of the magazine, which is motivated not by profit but rather creativity and diversity. Often it takes direct aim at more commercial publishing enterprises, and indeed the magazine actually calls itself an “attack journal” on the cover.

Savage lovingly describes The Lifted Brow as “a living literary entity that takes risks, harnesses new voices, and makes space for outstanding work that might not find a home elsewhere because it’s weird, cheeky, challenging or experimental.”

“The Brow is independent from a lot of the institutional pressures that can creep into and sort of dumb down or temper editorial decisions. I’ve been here for five years, and in that time there was never any pressure to edit or publish anything I couldn’t get behind,” she says.

Terzis agrees. “The term ‘attack journal’ implies a kind of abrasiveness and difficulty, which is evident in the type of things we publish. We like work that is exciting, ambitious, anarchic—writing that demands deep engagement from the reader. When commissioning articles for the Brow, I'm especially attracted to work that is challenging and difficult to categorise, and compelled by voices that are denied a space in mainstream channels.”

Reading The Lifted Brow, Terzis says, is meant to be a multi-sensory experience. Designer Rosetta Mills and art editor Marc Pearson work to push the boundaries of traditional magazine art direction. "Art is so vital to the Brow—it's as much an art magazine as it is a literary magazine. Our art editors…have an uncanny knack for commissioning artwork, illustrations and comics that speak back to the writing and cast it in a new light.”

“This edition is visually rich,” Savage adds. “Typically, the artwork in the magazine is made up of a combination of illustrations that directly respond to stories and essays in the edition, works of art that standalone, and short and longer-form graphic narratives that work on their own literary merit.”

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Flick through the pages of the latest Lifted Brow and you’ll find an analysis of VICE’s recent Chemsex documentary, poetry in the form of a cripplingly self-aware Twitter feed, and a notorious relationship advice column helmed by writer Benjamin Law with the help of his mum Jenny Phang. It's a purposefully shifting and surprising experience, and a welcome break from the clean-cut design magazines or staid institutional literary journals you're used to.

Terzis says that the magazine’s power comes from an uncommon ability to defy categorisation. “It's a great and rare thing for a magazine to be irreverent and serious, sharp and deeply felt all at once.”

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